


a case of clashing personalities

by nightswatch



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 09:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5780134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightswatch/pseuds/nightswatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire learns that Enjolras actually doesn't only talk to him when he wants something and that he isn't bad company sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a case of clashing personalities

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weisbrot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weisbrot/gifts).



> For an exchange with the lovely [weisbrot](http://weisbrot.tumblr.com/). I really hope that you like it and that it's what you were imagining.

Admittedly, watching Enjolras stride toward him across the lawn is a rather majestic sight to behold. There’s something about him, and Grantaire can’t quite put his finger on what it is – maybe the way he holds himself or the way his hair looks all shiny and halo-y in the spring sun, or maybe it’s his ridiculous cheekbones – in any case, it makes Enjolras still look majestic when he stumbles over the root of a tree on his way over to Grantaire. Enjolras glares at the root and then walks on as if nothing happened.

Grantaire almost chokes on his sandwich, pretty sure that he’ll never forget the priceless look on Enjolras’ face. He’ll treasure this moment forever. Grantaire is still grinning when Enjolras comes to a halt in front of him.

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says.

“Enjolras,” Grantaire says, because apparently they’re proving to each other that they still know each other’s names despite having know each other for years.

“How are you?” Enjolras asks, tucking a flyaway strand of hair behind his ear. He’s carrying a backpack, and another bag that Grantaire assumes is full of course books – no light reading in every sense of the word by the looks of it – and a cup of coffee, which is most likely his lunch. Grantaire has overheard Combeferre needling Enjolras about getting something _proper_ to eat on several occasions. It’s funny because Grantaire knows for a fact that Combeferre constantly has nothing but coffee for breakfast and old granola bars that he found in his bag for lunch.

“Fine,” Grantaire says, smirking up at him. “Spiffing, really. How about you?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” Enjolras slowly lowers his book bag to the ground, but doesn’t sit down. He’s looking at Grantaire expectantly, though, as if he’s waiting for an invitation.

“Um…” Grantaire nods at the patch of lawn next to him. “Do you want to sit down?”

Enjolras nods and joins his bag, and Grantaire, on the lawn. “So…” He takes a sip of his coffee, wrinkling his nose. It looks like it’s cafeteria coffee. That would definitely explain the pained look on Enjolras’ face. “How have you been?”

“You just asked me that,” Grantaire says, narrowing his eyes at Enjolras. He doesn’t want to be suspicious, but Enjolras doesn’t spend a lot of time at the park, he’s more of a library person. Grantaire has a feeling that Enjolras is here because he wants something. Honestly, why else would he come all the way here to talk to him?

“I’m just trying to make polite conversation,” Enjolras grumbles. “If you prefer, I can just sit here and not say anything at all.”

Grantaire only smirks at him. The suspicion hasn’t quite gone away yet.

“Anyway,” Enjolras says after a moment, “first I asked how you’re doing and then I asked you how you’ve been. Those are two completely different things.”

“Alright.” Grantaire takes a bite of his sandwich. It’s not from the cafeteria, so it’s actually edible. “Are you sure that you want to know?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know, now, would I?” Enjolras says testily.

Grantaire hums. Well, if he _really_ wants to know. “So, when I got up this morning, I had a cat on my face and I’m still trying to figure out if it was attempted murder or if he was just being a little shit. And yesterday I had dinner at Musichetta’s. Has she ever invited you over for dinner?” Enjolras shakes his head. “It’s amazing, seriously, her cooking is the best. She should open a restaurant, honestly. And before that I spent a horrendous amount of money on art supplies.

Enjolras is nodding, like he’s really listening, intently, like he is _interested_.

It’s unsetting in so many ways. He and Enjolras, they don’t talk. Well, they do, but they don’t sit down together to have lunch in the park and to talk about their days. “And… what about you?” Grantaire asks, because his life isn’t all that interesting. If he tells Enjolras that he met Bahorel at the gym the other day, or that he’s thinking about getting back into fencing, or that he spent all weekend watching terrible movies on Netflix, Enjolras will get bored eventually.

“I spent the last week or so at the library, it was extremely exciting,” Enjolras says, his lips twitching. “The librarian yelled at a guy because she caught him writing into a book apparently. It was very entertaining.” He sniffs at his coffee but doesn’t take another sip. “What did Musichetta cook for you, then?”

Grantaire, not really expecting that he’d have to talk again so soon, quickly swallows down another bite of his sandwich. “Lots of stuff,” he splutters.

“Sorry, finish your food first, I’ll just…” Enjolras grabs his backpack and unearths a squashed banana from it. He makes a face as he starts to peel it.

Grantaire tries not to stare at him, but Enjolras, looking miserable whilst eating that banana, turns out to be even more entertaining than watching him trip over tree roots. “Right,” Grantaire says once his sandwich is gone, “she made chicken. And it’s just just… the best chicken.” There’s no good way of describing Musichetta’s chicken, really, it’s the most heavenly thing Grantaire has ever tasted. “You’d have to try it.”

Enjolras smiles. “Special chicken, then?”

“Very special chicken,” Grantaire says. “And cake.”

“Chocolate cake?” Enjolras asks. He must have noticed the confused look on Grantaire’s face – Musichetta did, indeed, make chocolate cake – because he quickly adds, “You always have chocolate cake at the Musain.”

“Yeah,” Grantaire says, not entirely sure if he’s more confused or less confused than he was before.

“We both go to the Musain a lot,” Enjolras says slowly. “I noticed.”

“You noticed,” Grantaire echoes.

Enjolras shrugs. “It’s hard not to, you were complaining for at least ten minutes when they didn’t have any left two weeks ago. And you were complaining _loudly_.”

“And I could have definitely complained for at least another ten minutes.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Enjolras says, smiling at him.

“So you came here to insult my marvelous and eloquent rant about the Musain’s appalling chocolate cake shortage, I see how it is,” Grantaire says, shaking his head.

Enjolras huffs. “Of course, why else.”

“Seriously, though,” Grantaire says, eyeing Enjolras. He looks relaxed, which isn’t a word that Grantaire would usually use to describe Enjolras. “What are you doing here?”

“I saw you sitting here, so I thought I might as well join you.”

“Really?” Grantaire asks. Obviously Enjolras couldn’t have known that Grantaire was in the park, so it’s not a lie, most likely. But still. “It’s just, we never really… hang out. So this is, well, unusual.”

“I know. That’s why I thought we could spend some time together.”

Grantaire laughs. “You know, we never spend time together for a reason.”

“Because we usually end up disagreeing?”

That was putting it mildly. “Well, yeah.”

“That doesn’t mean that we can’t have a civil conversation,” Enjolras says matter-of-factly. “We’re not disagreeing on anything right now. Unless you insist on making this difficult.”

“Excuse you, I’m not the one who always insists on making things difficult,” Grantaire says. It might be for the best to just let this go, so he pulls the chocolate chip cookies that Bahorel left for him in the kitchen this morning out of his bag. “Want one?”

Enjolras shakes his head, but Grantaire doesn’t miss that he’s looking at the box with interest.

“Bahorel made them,” Grantaire says, “which means that they’re actually edible.”

“Your cookies are edible, too.”

Grantaire wiggles his eyebrows at him and Enjolras rolls his eyes. “Sometimes I just can’t help myself,” Grantaire says with a shrug. “Are you sure you don’t want one? Your squishy banana didn’t look like the greatest lunch of all time.”

Enjolras purses his lips but reaches out and takes one. “My squishy banana was fine, thank you very much.”

Grantaire grins at him and happily munches his cookie.

To be honest, he didn’t like Enjolras much when they first met, and he’s sure that the feeling is – well, _was_ – mutual, but after hearing him talk for the first time, Grantaire changed his mind. Rapidly. Enjolras is good at talking, great even, captivating and confident. For Grantaire it isn’t so much what he says, it’s the way that he says things that Grantaire finds so fascinating. It’s not like Grantaire doesn’t want to believe in the things that Enjolras believes in so much, he just doesn’t find believing in certain things quite as easy as Enjolras does. They have clashing personalities, in a way. And yet they’re having lunch together, just the two of them, and nobody has died yet. Grantaire should probably consider that a minor miracle.

“Do you want another one?” Grantaire asks.

“I didn’t come here so I could eat all your cookies.”

“No, as we’ve already established you came here to insult my compelling rants about chocolate cake,” Grantaire says and holds out the box to Enjolras. “Go on.”

“I didn’t…” Enjolras trails off with a sigh, apparently resigned, and takes another cookie. “Thanks.”

They fall silent then. Enjolras sits with his face turned up against the sun, cookie crumbles on his chin. Grantaire glances at him every now and then, wondering how on earth he ended up here. Well, maybe he actually saw him sitting here and decided that he wanted to hang out with him on a whim. Maybe he doesn’t have any ulterior motives, as hard as Grantaire finds that to believe.

Enjolras cracks an eye open. “You’re staring at me, aren’t you?”

“Just because you have at least half a cookie crumbled all over your face,” Grantaire says, hoping his face isn’t going bright red. He probably isn’t that lucky.

“Oh,” Enjolras mutters and quickly wipes his hand over his face.

Grantaire huffs out a laugh and Enjolras, after a moment, starts laughing as well. He should have lunch with Enjolras more often, it’s actually much nicer than he would have imagined.

* * *

“Grantaire, do you have a minute?”

“For you I even have two minutes,” Grantaire says and glances at Joly and Bossuet, who are hovering by the door, probably waiting for him and Bahorel, who’s standing at the Musains’ counter, chatting to Feuilly. Grantaire waves at them to let them know that they can leave without them.

Today’s meeting was unofficial anyway, actually it was never a meeting in the first place. Grantaire dragged Bahorel to the Musain after they left the gym, Joly and Bossuet joined them, and no ten minutes later Courfeyrac showed up with Enjolras in tow. It’s simply a matter of all of them constantly coming to the exact same coffee shop as if there aren’t hundreds of others out there.

“I’ll just…” Courfeyrac points at the counter and quickly walks away. He obviously doesn’t want to be around for this conversation.

“Okay?” Grantaire says, watching Courfeyrac’ walk away before he slowly turns to Enjolras. “Am I dying?”

“Not as far as I know,” Enjolras says. He sits back down at their table and Grantaire does the same, not sure what to expect. Since Courfeyrac has oh-so-conveniently removed himself from the situation it can’t be anything good.

Grantaire tries to think of something he might have done to piss off Enjolras but really can’t come up with anything. He hasn’t said anything obnoxious in Enjolras’ presence recently as far as he remembers. “Um…”

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says, fiddling with a napkin. “Do you know Courfeyrac’s roommate? Marius?”

“Yeah, of course.” Grantaire frowns at Enjolras. Marius even came to one of their meetings a while ago, although Grantaire is pretty sure that it wasn’t one of Marius’ finest moments. He’s stayed away ever since, too, but Grantaire still runs into him every now and again.

Enjolras nods. “Well, Marius has a girlfriend, do you know her?”

“Cosette, yeah, I know her.” Grantaire hasn’t met her yet, but Marius talks about her all the time. Really, he won’t shut up about her. Still, Grantaire has no idea where this is going. “So, what exactly is this about?”

“I met her earlier,” Enjolras says, his face all business-like now, “and she said that she was trying to found some sort of campus magazine with a couple of friends of hers. Which I think is a fantastic idea, by the way, because that newsletter we have right now is a disgrace if you ask me. Anyway, she said they were looking for someone to draw a comic strip and I said I had a friend who might want to help them out.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Grantaire says. It takes a moment for his confusion to lift. “Wait, I’m that friend?”

Enjolras blinks at him. “Yes, of course. Who else?”

Grantaire shrugs. “I don’t know. Some other random artsy person you know.”

“Well, I was thinking of you, specifically. I’ve seen your art, I wouldn’t have recommended just some,” Enjolras smiles, “random artsy person I’m acquainted with.”

“Oh,” Grantaire only says. Enjolras thought of him, which is flattering, of course, but it’s also a little surprising.

“You don’t have to, obviously. As I said, I just told her that I have a friend who might be interested in helping her out. I don’t think there’d be any money in it, but I can give her your number and she can explain the details to you if you want.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Courfeyrac returns to them, grinning broadly. “So, are you doing it?”

“He doesn’t have to decide right now,” Enjolras says and turns to Grantaire. “Really, it’s just an offer. Don’t feel obligated.”

“Yeah, Enjolras just thought it sounded like a thing you might want to do,” Courfeyrac says. “And I totally agree, I mean, that comic you drew for our blog was hilarious.”

“Sure, I’ll talk to Cosette,” Grantaire says. “You know, they wouldn’t have trouble finding someone else. Tons of people would be interested in this sort of thing.”

“But you come at personal recommendation,” Courfeyrac says and winks at him.

“Well, thanks.”

“Oh, don’t thank me,” Courfeyrac says and gives Enjolras a nudge. “He’s the one who wouldn’t shut up about your art.”

Enjolras smiles sheepishly. “It is very good art.”

Grantaire isn’t really sure what his face is doing, so he simply ducks his head and says, “Seriously, thank you. Well, I should…” He nods at the door. Bahorel is still waiting for him after all, although he’s still busy talking to Feuilly, who doesn’t seem to have too much work to do now that the evening rush is over.

“So, what was that all about?” Bahorel asks as soon as they’re out the door, giving him what Bahorel would most likely call a _gentle_ shove. “I think your eyes turned a bit heart-shaped while he was talking to you.”

“Please,” Grantaire says gruffly.

“No, really, they did,” Bahorel says, nodding seriously. “So, what did he want?”

Grantaire can’t quite keep a grin from spreading over his face. It isn’t so much that Enjolras is angelically beautiful and that Grantaire is simply happy to be in his general vicinity and to be able to look at that marvelous face of his, honestly, every person Enjolras knows most likely has a bit of a crush on him, Grantaire is convinced. All of that might be a bit of an exaggeration, too. Anyway. Enjolras thought of _him_. Granted, Enjolras probably doesn’t know shit about art, but still. Grantaire is pretty sure that he won't be able to stop smiling for at least a week.

Bahorel looks at him, eyebrows raised, definitely amused.

It would probably sound ridiculous to Bahorel. _Someone recommended my art_. But it’s so wonderful to know that he was the first person that Enjolras – and Courfeyrac – thought of.

“As I said, heart-eyes,” Bahorel says.

Grantaire gives Bahorel a shove in return, trying to hide his grin.

* * *

Grantaire isn’t sure if this is actually the worst day of his life. It could be. It feels like it is. It’s not even anything big, just little things that have been continuously ruining his day. It didn’t start out bad. He rolled out of bed this morning without a complaint, without any cursing or grumbling, without thinking about whether or not it was really worth it for a second. Then his coffeemaker died on him, then he spilled the coffee he bought all over his shoes, then he missed his bus, then he was late for work, then he remembered that he had an essay to hand in. So he went to the library after work. At least he got the essay done, but now it’s dark and it’s raining and he doesn’t have an umbrella.

Which is why he’s now standing outside the library’s doors, unwilling to step out into the rain. It’s mainly his sketchbook that he’s concerned about. If the rain just let up a little bit, he could run to the bus stop, it’s not that far. Grantaire grumbles at the rain. When a hand touches his shoulder, he nearly jumps out of his skin.

“What the fuck.” Grantaire takes a steps to the side, his eyes finding Enjolras’, bright and blue, now growing wide.

“I’m sorry,” Enjolras says, his lips twitching. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t,” Grantaire mutters. He bites his lip. “Maybe a little.”

“How are you?”

“Fine,” Grantaire says with a shrug. Things could be worse. But they could also be a lot better. His coffeemaker could still be alive.

“Are you…” Enjolras looks around, at the deserted campus, at the handful of people running from building to building, or just walking quickly if they have an umbrella, stumbling and cursing when the wind turns their umbrellas inside out. “Are you waiting for something? Or someone?”

“Actually, I was just trying to stop the rain through sheer force of will,” Grantaire says, “and, as you can see, it’s not going very well for me. Definitely need to work on that.”

Enjolras holds up his umbrella. “Where are you headed?”

“Bus stop,” Grantaire says, nodding at the bus stop in question, barely visible in the rain. “I just didn’t want my sketchbook to get wet. I doubt Cosette would appreciate getting a dripping sketch, you know?”

“So you decided to work with her,” Enjolras says, smiling at him.

“Yeah, she’s pretty cool,” Grantaire says. “Really nice, too. I sort of understand why Marius finds it so hard to talk about anything other than her. Anyway, thanks for giving her my number.”

Enjolras laughs. “No problem. By the way, the other day she asked me if I wanted to help them out with an article here and there.”

“And you obviously pounced on the opportunity.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I just know that you have a lot to say,” Grantaire says and gives Enjolras a pleasant smile so he’ll stop scowling at him. “I bet you already have a list from here to Australia with article ideas.”

Enjolras purses his lips. “So what if I do?”

Grantaire studies his face for a moment, then he snorts. “You already wrote one, didn’t you?”

“It’s an important subject,” Enjolras says indignantly. “But you wouldn’t know anything about it because you spent all of last week’s meeting putting dinosaur stickers on Bossuet’s head.”

“Oh, come on,” Grantaire says, and nudges Enjolras with his elbow, “you thought that was funny.”

Enjolras sighs but Grantaire doesn’t miss the quirk of his lips. He distinctly remembers Enjolras smirking in their direction during the meeting, too. “A little bit funny, maybe.”

“So you wrote an article about campus security?” Grantaire asks. “Which I know because contrary to popular belief I can listen to you and put dinosaur stickers on Bossuet’s head at the same time.”

Enjolras nods and opens his umbrella. “Would you like to read it? Before it’s published, I mean? I could use a second opinion.”

Grantaire almost wants to smile at him because this isn’t an offer that Enjolras makes to just anyone, he’s sure. He raises his eyebrows instead. “Are you sure it’s _my_ opinion you want?”

“I already asked Combeferre to read it, but…” Enjolras waves his hand impatiently. “He usually agrees with me on issues like those.”

Well, Grantaire wouldn’t say that he doesn’t _agree_ with Enjolras, but Enjolras has a very idealistic way of tackling most issues. And then there’s obviously also the thing with the clashing personalities. “I’m pretty sure that Combeferre would still tell you if there was anything he didn’t like about it. And he’d be nice about it.”

“I know,” Enjolras says. “I just thought I’d ask.”

“Well, hand it over, then. And I promise that I won’t be nice about it if that’s really what you want.”

Enjolras looks like he wants to roll his eyes, but he doesn’t. He glances at Grantaire, then at his open umbrella. “Are you in a hurry to get home?”

“No, why?”

“I was going to get a coffee at the Musain, do you want to come along?” Enjolras holds up his umbrella. “Maybe they have chocolate cake.”

“Coffee,” Grantaire says longingly and steps under the umbrella. “You know, my coffeemaker broke this morning.”

“Ah, that’s why you’re so grumpy.”

“Please, I’m always like this,” Grantaire mumbles.

“No, you’re not,” Enjolras says and pulls him into the rain.

It’s not a big umbrella, but at least Grantaire manages to keep his bag out of the rain. His entire left side is drenched by the time they make it to the Musain, but he does spot some chocolate cake behind the counter, so he isn’t too grumpy about being half-wet.

They sit down in the back and order coffee and cake from Feuilly, then Enjolras pulls a folder out of his bag and wordlessly hands Grantaire his article. It’s four pages long. Grantaire bites his lip. He can’t talk shit before he’s even started reading. But. “You know…”

Enjolras raises an impeccable eyebrow. “Yes?”

“This is kinda long. And it’s for a student magazine and at least most of the students I know don’t have the longest attention span. Just saying.”

“Well, feel free to point out passages that could be shortened.”

Grantaire hums and fishes a pen out of his bag while he’s reading the first few lines. “Ha!”

Enjolras groans. “What?”

“Found a spelling mistake,” Grantaire mutters and marks it with a generous amount of exclamation points.

Enjolras only makes a huffy noise in reply.

“On a scale from one to ten,” Grantaire says, “how much do you regret letting me read this?”

“Must be a twelve,” Enjolras says brightly, “at least.”

Grantaire grins at him and pulls his sketchbook out of his bag. “Have a look at these,” he says. “It’s all ideas for the magazine.” He bought a separate sketchbook for the magazine, mainly because he really wanted a new sketchbook but also because he doesn’t want anyone to stumble over his drawings of cats that have fur that looks like pizza. Or the series of gremlins that look uncannily like his friends.

Tentatively, Enjolras takes the sketchbook. “Are you sure?”

“Go right ahead. I mean nothing that’s in there is finished, but yeah.” Grantaire shrugs. He really likes how some of those sketches turned out.

“You once told me that you never show your sketchbook to anyone,” Enjolras says.

Grantaire remembers that. He laughs. “Because you were pissing me off,” he says. “And you were being nosy.”

“Well, I apologize. For being nosy.”

Grantaire hums noncommittally and turns his attention back to Enjolras’ article, pretending that he doesn’t care that Enjolras just apologized for something that he did three years ago. It’s nice of him, actually. Not something he would have expected, which makes it even nicer.

“Really,” Enjolras says, “thanks for showing me this, I appreciate it.”

Grantaire tries not to smile, unfortunately that doesn’t quite work out for him. He has a reputation to uphold after all. “Sure,” he says and marks a ridiculously long paragraph just for the hell of it. He looks up again when Enjolras snorts at something in his sketchbook. This time he doesn’t try very hard to keep himself from smiling.

“We should do this more often,” Enjolras says once Grantaire has handed back his article, now covered in marker.

“Have cake and exchange art and articles?”

“Just… hang out,” Enjolras says. “I’m starting to fear that you might think that I only spend time with you when I want you to help me out with something.”

Grantaire laughs. “Nah, don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten all the times you joined me in the park with your squashed bananas. And your reading for that god-awful class you kept ranting about.”

“Don’t remind me,” Enjolras says. “Although I really just came to sit with you because you always had cookies.”

Grantaire grins at Enjolras and kicks him under the table. A couple of months ago, he might have believed exactly that. Not anymore, though. Who would have thought that hanging out with Enjolras would ever actually make him happy?

Enjolras kicks him back and smiles.

The things that smile is doing to him are a problem for a different day.


End file.
